Pacific Coast Steamship Company (1877-1916), San
Francisco
For 40 years, this was the dominant firm in the coastwise traffic along the West
Coast of the US and to Alaska. The company originated in a San Francisco Bay
operation carrying water to ships in the harbor from springs in the upper
reaches of the bay. The Pacific Coast SS Co proper began in 1877 and eventually
attracted the attention of investors from the eastern US, but the intense
competition that developed following the Alaska gold rush kept profits down, and
the shareholders used the excuse of a fire on the company's largest ship in 1916
to sell the company to Hubbard F. Alexander, who merged it into his
Admiral Line. The flag was blue with a white
lozenge charged with a red cross paty.
Source: www.steamship.net (no longer available)

Pacific Far East Line, San Francisco (1946-1978)<us~$pfel.gif>
The Pacific Far East Line was created by Thomas E. Cuffe after World War II to
take advantage of the availability of surplus wartime cargo ships. The line was
exceptionally successful for its first decade, operating across the Pacific with
31 ships by 1949 and an especially strong position in shipping US military
cargoes. However, after Cuffe suddenly died in 1959, the standard of management
declined and the company repeatedly missed opportunities to upgrade to the new
container technology. It finally went bankrupt in 1978. All PFEL ships had names
ending with the world "Bear," and the flag was blue with a golden bear below the
script letters PFEL.
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.Joe McMillan, 8 November 2001

image located by James Ferrigan, 12 March 2009

Image of an actual flag offered for sale on eBay.James Ferrigan, 12
March 2009

Pacific Mail SS Co, San Francisco
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded in 1848 by William Aspinwall of
the firm of Howland and Aspinwall to execute a
contract to carry mail from the Isthmus of Panama to the newly-annexed territory
of California. Fortuitously for Aspinwall and his fellow investors, Pacific Mail
was ideally positioned to cash in on the Gold Rush of 1849. As a result of this
and the high quality of its service, the company became both an important part
of the history of the American West as well as one of the most profitable
enterprises of its era, with an annual return on investment that ran as high as
30%. Within five years of its inception, the company was running 18 steamers and
it peaked at 23 in 1869. In that year, however, the completion of the
transcontinental railroad foretold the end of the high profits of the
Panama-California route. PMSS also neglected to keep up to date technologically
and began to suffer from competition from other companies, especially the
Occidental and Oriental SS Company. For a
time, the line survived on subsidized mail contracts to Australia and New
Zealand, but when it lost those it was soon forced to accept a takeover by the
Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1893. In 1912, Congress banned ships owned
by railroads from using the Panama Canal, so Southern Pacific sold PMSS to the
Grace Line, which operated it as a subsidiary
under its traditional house flag from 1916-25. It was then taken over by
Robert Dollar & Co., which merged PMSS into its
own operation, although it, too, continued to use the old name and flag on
occasion. With the government bail-out of the Dollar Line in 1938, ownership
passed to American President Lines, but by this time PMSS essentially existed
only on paper. It was formally closed down in 1949 after just over a century of
existence. The flag of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company was a swallowtail of
five horizontal stripes, red-white-blue-white-red.
Sources: Manning (1874), Lloyds 1912

Joe McMillan, 8 November 2001

by Jarig Bakker

Pacific Mail SS Co. According to Loughran (1979)
the company sometimes used prior to 1868 a long tapered swallow-tailed pennant,
red with narrow white borders top and bottom and the bearing the white letters "P.M.S.S.Co."
in descending scale.

The Palmer Fleet, Boston
An early 20th century sailing ship line flying a white flag with a blue border
and the name PALMER in red.
Source: Lloyds 1912

Joe McMillan, 11 November 2001

by Jarig Bakker

by Jarig Bakker

The Palmer Fleet. Lloyds shows as William F. Palmer and Loughran (1979)
expands that this schooner owner was not connected with another operator of the
same period, Nathaniel T. Palmer of Bath. Nathaniel did not have a houseflag as
such, instead placing a large black "P" on the foresail, but his ships did have
their own individual flags and with this being named after family members
confusion can result. Loughran shows two examples for Nathaniel T., both being
white tapered swallowtail pennants, that for the "Palmer" having a blue border
except at hoist and the red legend 'PALMER", that for the "N.T.Palmer" having a
red border except at hoist and the blue legend "N.T.PALMER".

Panama Railroad Steamship Company (also known as Panama Steamship Company and
Panama Line), New York (1862 (or 1889) to 1981)
By one account, this line was established in 1862 to funnel passengers and
freight to the newly constructed Panama Railroad. Another source says it was
established in 1889 by the French isthmian canal company to support its
construction efforts. After Panama became independent of
Colombia with US support, the United States government
took over the canal-building effort and purchased the assets of the already
bankrupt French company, including the shipping line. The line's heyday was
during the construction period; once the canal was finished in 1914 the line
settled down to a more mundane level of business supporting the maintenance and
operation of the canal and its supporting infrastructure, including the
railroad. It was the target of constant attacks by privately owned shipping
firms who disliked having to compete with a government-owned line, but the
Panama Line was so efficiently run that it managed to stave off calls for
privatization until Panama took over responsibility for maintaining the canal
and railroad in 1981. There were at least two different flags used by the Panama
Line:
Sources: Lloyds 1912, Wedge (1926),
National Geographic (1934): a white swallowtail
with a black P.
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.: a blue over red swallowtail
with a white triangle in the hoist extending to the fork, and a blue P on the
white triangle.

In 1925, Standard (Indiana) purchased the Pan American Petroleum and Transport
Company, which continued to operate under its own name. Pan Am operated as a
subsidiary under its own name as Standard's main transportation arm. Only in
1954 was it subsumed into Standard's corporate identity. Before that its flag
was green with an orange disk bearing a monogram of the initials PT in white.

Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation, Mobile (1933-1960).
The Waterman Steamship Company established this company in 1933 to conduct
coastwise operations while the parent company focused on overseas routes. The
trucking magnate Malcolm McLean bought Pan-Atlantic (and subsequently the rest
of Waterman) in 1955, eventually converted it to container ships, and renamed it
Sea-Land in 1960. The flag was blue with a white diamond bearing the black
letters P-A (note the resemblance to the Waterman flag, which was the same but
with a black W).
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.

Pan Ore SS Co
A subsidiary of Alcoa (Aluminum Company of America). The flag was white with
three red horizontal stripes surmounted by a blue bordered white circle bearing
a blue letter P (note the resemblance to the original
Alcoa Steamship Co flag.
Source:
Stewart (1953)

Patriarch SS Co
The only reference I have found to this company refers to it as "of Monrovia,"
so I assume this is or was a US-owned firm operating under the Liberian flag.
The house flag is fairly attractive, a blue-white-blue horizontal triband, on
the center a yellow lozenge covering about half the hoist, inscribed with a red
letter P.
Source:
Styring (1971)

Joe McMillan, 12
November 2001

Patriarch Steamship Co. Located New York and operated the
"Patriarch Sky" 1965-1971.

As recently indicated by fearsome ferrets (a term of praise) the New York
Public Library Digital Collection has many vex treasures on offer, one of which
is this menu:
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?keyword=+%22patten+line%22
of a luncheon held on 29 Jun 1901 on board the 'Thomas Patten’. Flag image,
detail of Image ID 469235: white swallowtail with tapering edges, bordered blue
(except at the hoist), bearing blue name “PATTEN LINE” sans serif.

Named
in fact ‘Sea Bright & Long Branch Steamboat Company’, the firm was founded by
entrepreneur Thomas Patten Sr for his son, Thomas G. Patten. The ships linked
New York to nearby places appearing in the company name, running daily at low
cost. In 1918 there were financial difficulties but 1929 meant really the end
when the remaining vessels were sold to another local operator, the Keansburg
Steamship Co.

Henry W. Peabody's Australia Line, Boston (1850s-?)
One of a number of companies running clippers from the United States to
Australia during the Australian gold rush of the 1850s. The Peabodys are a
prominent old family in the Salem and Boston shipping industry--Salem's
excellent maritime museum is named for them. There were a number of famous
shipping firms in which they were principals, but this is the only one for which
I've found a house flag. It was merely a white swallowtail with a red letter P.
Source: clipper card at
www.ballarat.edu.au/sovhill/gold150Joe McMillan, 12 November 2001

My question is: do we think the flag drawn
by Joe is for real? And if so, is this intended as a rectangular flag with a
cut, but flyingaway from the viewer, or is this intended to be a tapering
flag?Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 1 March 2012

Peninsular & Occidental Steamship Co, Jacksonville, FL
(1900-1967)
This American version of the P&O was formed by combining the ships of the Plant
Line (founded 1885) and those belonging to Henry Flagler. Both Henry Plant and
Henry Flagler were railroad magnates who had major roles in the development of
Florida as a tourist haven, Plant on the west coast of the state and Flagler on
the east. Plant's railroad ended at Tampa and Flagler's at Miami (later extended
to Key West) and both had the idea of extending their service with cruises to
Havana. The P&O thrived until after World War II, when competition from
airplanes began to erode both the passenger and cargo base. By 1949, the line
was down to one small ship. Ten years later, the Cuban Revolution and the
ensuing US embargo put an end to the Cuban tourist trade, but the P&O limped on
for another few years trying to compete in the Caribbean cruise market between
Miami and the Bahamas. The flag had a rather Bavarian look, a burgee lozengy in
blue and white, with the initials P&O in red (the china at steamship.net shows
blue) on the central white lozenge.
Sources: Talbot-Booth (1937),
National Geographic (1934),
Wedge (1951), www.steamship.net (no longer available)

Penn Shipping Company
This was a small independent tanker company. It existed at least into the 1970s.
The flag was blue with white stripes along the upper and lower edges, on the
center a white lozenge with a red P.
Source:
Stewart & Styring (1963)

Permanente Steamship Corp, Oakland, California
US members of the list will recognize the name "Permanente" as the second half
of the medical insurance firm (actually a health management organization, or HMO)
Kaiser Permanente. Permanente Metals Company was the shipbuilding yard owned by
Henry J. Kaiser, dating back before World War II. Kaiser was the man principally
responsible for organizing the incredibly successful US merchant shipbuilding
effort during the war. The Permanente Steamship Company was an offshoot of his
shipbuilding endeavors; it was apparently active for some years from the late
1940s into the 60s. Its house flag was white with green stripes along the upper
and lower edges and a red P on the center. (The connection with the HMO is that
Kaiser Permanente was originally formed to provide health coverage to employees
of the shipyard--a pioneering workers' benefit in its time--and later opened up
to the general public. Kaiser Permanente now operates its flagship hospital on
the site of the Permanente Metals plant in Oakland.)
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.